


Currently untitled (I'll think of a name later)

by ceciliasol



Category: Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Namaari never betrayed Raya, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29882823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceciliasol/pseuds/ceciliasol
Summary: This story starts right after Namaari and Raya become friends, when Raya decides to show her the dragon gem. But in this version, Namaari never betrayed Raya, yet the gem still got taken from the sanctuary, with disastrous results. Now, while the land of Fang thrives at the expense of the other four lands, Raya has to find a way to reach out for her old friend and fix a mistake they both made, years ago.
Relationships: Namaari/Raya (Disney)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 102





	1. Chapter 1

_Setup: Starts at the scene where Raya takes Namaari to see the dragon gem. I’m assuming everyone here already watched the movie, so I won’t repeat any of the previous scenes in the text._

—

“Come with me, _dep la_. I wanna show you something.”

These words had been said with such kindness that there was no way I would have refused, even knowing my mother would punish me later for disappearing in the middle of the ceremony. Raya offered me her hand to pull me up, and I gladly took it. We glanced around quickly, to make sure nobody was watching, then dashed away.

“Where are you taking me?” I tried asking, along the way.

Raya giggled. “You’ll see when we get there.”

It was a twenty-minute walk from the Heart palace to the top of the old ruins. At first we had to keep quiet and tiptoe around palace staff, but after a while we began to relax and chat about pretty much anything that came to mind. I asked her about her life in Heart, and she asked me what it was like, being the Princess of Fang. There were some stark differences between our cultures and costumes, at first glance, but when you looked under the surface, it turned out that we weren’t so different at all. But while the land of Heart was fertile and bountiful, Fang had poor land or climate for agriculture.

“Maybe if dad is right, and we reach peace between the five lands, Heart could share what we have with the other kingdoms. That way, no one has to go without.”

Raya’s proposition was so heartfelt that it made me hesitate for a moment.

“You would do that?” I asked, surprised.

“Sure,” she confirmed, with an earnest smile.

“But… what if your people need it? What if you give help, but don’t get it back when you need it? Shouldn’t you care for your people first?”

Raya hummed, thoughtful. “My _Ba_ once said that what we have here, we have to share,” she told me. “I don’t care if we’re different kingdoms now, we’re all people. And people have to help each other.”

As we walked side-by-side through the tunnels, silence settled between us. I had nothing to say to that. Raya’s words... all of it was a very different philosophy from the one of my homeland. I was raised to believe that my first priority should always be my own well-being, and that of my kin. “Care for yourself and your people, princess,” my mother used to say, “because nobody else will do that for you.” It was a rational way of thinking. Sensible, even.

So why was it that Raya’s words sounded so right?

“We’re here,” said Raya.

We stopped walking in what seemed to be a dead-end, one of many among those tunnels. Raya took a pair of arnis sticks and used them to turn a large round rock panel on the wall. I could hear the metal sounds of clockwork falling in place on the other side, until the rock panel unlatched from the mechanism and we were able to push it sideways, revealing an opening and a stone staircase on the other side. Raya took off her shoes, and I did the same, before we walked up the steps together.

There was a stream of water running down the stone steps beside us. Wait. No. It was running _up_ the steps. But how?! This should be impossible.

I was so distracted by the water that I didn’t realize we’d reached the top of the stairs until Raya tapped on my shoulder. I lifted my eyes, and my jaw dropped at the sight of what was before us. “Is that…”

“Yes,” Raya answered, excitedly.

I laughed, amazed. In the center of the room, surrounded by a pool of water and underneath an open dome and a clear sky, was the _dragon gem_ , a glowing blue orb containing the last of the dragons’ magic in this world. I had dreamed of it, yet I never thought I’d see it in person.

I wanted to move closer, but hesitated, in awe and reverence.

“It’s okay, come on,” said Raya, offering me her hand to guide me. Slowly, we approached the gem. “This place is special,” Raya told me. “See the water that floats around the gem, it goes up into the sky in days of storm, spreading Sisu’s magic among the clouds. That way, the magic of dragons can be carried over through the five lands.”

“Is that why you keep it here?” I asked, and Raya nodded.

Once we were at the edge of the water pool, I fell to my knees, and brought my hands to my forehead, forming the gesture recognized all across the land as a sign of reverence to Sisu, the great. Raya did the same. But the moment was interrupted by a sound coming from behind us.

We turned to look, startled. My mother, Queen Virana of Fang, was standing at the top of the stairs, alone, doing a slow clap.

“You make your mother proud, Namaari,” she said. “Who’d have thought you’d lead me here, to the most prized treasure in all five lands.”

Raya glared at me, with bloodshot eyes. My breath hitched. “No! I didn’t mean to!” I tried to say, but the words came out muffled and stuttered.

Virana began to walk toward us. Raya got to her feet, and pulled the arnis sticks from her sash, pointing them at my mother.

“Do not take another step,” she threatened.

My mother smirked, as if this was all too funny for her.

Everything happened too fast. In less than a second, my mother disarmed Raya, pinned her to the floor and bound her wrists and legs tightly, before pulling her up and tossing her aside.

“Your father was foolish to assign you for the duty of guarding the dragon gem,” Virana told Raya, staring down at her. “You’re young, inexperienced, unreliable, like all children. Chief Benja should know better than to give an adult’s job to a child.”

Then my mother turned, and started to walk toward the dragon gem. I could only watch, too stunned about what was happening to even figure out what I should do, or what side I should take. It was only when I saw the look of pain and betrayal in Raya’s eyes that I found out what I wanted to do.

I got to my feet and positioned myself between my mother and the path to the gem, with arms wide open.

“Mother, stop!” I said, arms opened. I saw my mother raise a curious eyebrow, as if this was one outcome she was not expecting.

“Namaari, dear, as a princess of Fang, you knew very well, coming to Heart, that it was our full intent to return home with the dragon gem.”

I did too. But not like this.

“Yes, but you said we would _talk_ to them, mother!” I tried to argue. “Not steal it from them! We’re not thieves!”

Virana chuckled. “You seem to have misunderstood one thing, my dear. _They’re_ the thieves,” she spat the words while pointing at Raya. “The dragon gem belongs to all of us, yet the people of Heart have been hoarding it for almost five hundred years. We’re not stealing, Namaari, we’re taking back what’s ours.”

She took another step, yet, I didn’t budge. When she saw that I wasn’t about to move, my mother put on her sternest look, and stared down at me.

“Namaari, you are my daughter, and a princess of Fang. Think well where your loyalty lies. You do not want to return home a traitor to your people.”

I whimpered, and I could feel my legs shaking a little. I locked eyes with Raya, who was still fallen on the ground a few meters away. It was unfair. It shouldn’t be like this. “Namaari, please…” Raya asked me. But no matter how I thought about this, there was only one path for me to take.

I dropped my arms to the sides, and sidestepped, allowing my mother to pass.

“You don’t understand!” Raya shouted to my mother. “This place, it connects the gem to nature everywhere. If you take the gem, all of the lands will suffer.”

My mother didn’t hesitate. She took the gem from its resting spot, in the center of the water pool. “Not all of the lands,” was all she said.


	2. Chapter 2

Three years passed before I saw Princess Raya again. I left the land of Heart, that day, with a mind filled with doubt and mixed feelings: I knew that taking the gem was what was best for my people, yet I couldn’t shake off the ominous feeling that came with Raya’s words to us. _If you take the gem, all the lands will suffer_. What could she have meant by that? Was there more to the dragon gem than we thought we knew?

Delegations from all four lands came to Fang over the course of the next few days, demanding an explanation. None of them stepped foot in the city. If there was one thing Fang was famous for, was its military. The main city was cut off from the rest of the land by a canal, and crossbowmen in towers around the city made sure to warn off any intruders who eventually tried to reach the island. I watched from my room in the palace as they came and went, for weeks, until eventually they gave up.

In the three years that passed since the incident, Fang flourished. The dragon gem was set in a pool of water deep below the castle, and the canals that ran from that room reached crop fields all across Fang Island. Food was finally plentiful, our people were happy, life got better. So much so that at some point I even began to forget about Raya’s warning from three years before.

And then she came.

I was sitting on my bed, reading a book, when I heard a knock on my window. Surprised, I closed the book and walked over to the window. Was it a bird that just hit it? I mean, what else could it be, this high up in the palace tower?

 _What else_ indeed! I opened the windows to find none other than Princess Raya of Heart hanging next to it, her arnis sticks wedged between slits in the rock.

“A little help?” she asked. I promptly offered her a hand to pull her into the room. “Thanks, Namaari,” she said, smiling. “Say, why did they have to put your room this far above the ground?”

I chuckled. Three years without seeing each other, and that’s the first thing she says to me.

“Maybe to avoid people like you breaking in,” I teased.

“Well, in that case, they should have made it higher,” Raya quipped.

I laughed. “Yes, I guess they should.”

We stared at each other’s eyes, for a moment, both smiling. It was strange. I had only ever met her once, and in such confusing circumstances. Why was it that this felt so much like meeting an old friend?

“Oh, wait!” said Raya, breaking eye contact. She opened her satchel and took out a large, rectangular object wrapped in silk, then promptly offered it to me. I furrowed my brow and stared back at her, puzzled. “A gift for a friend,” she explained. “I’m a visitor, after all.”

I snorted. “You just broke into my room, Raya, you’re not a visitor so much as a burglar.” She shrugged, taking no offense. I accepted the gift, and smiled at her. “But… I suppose you _are_ a friend.”

I unwrapped the bundle, and found it contained a book. The cover had the illustration of a dragon, one I knew very well. I opened the book, and leafed through it. The pages were filled with legends about the dragons. Not just the one of Sisu, but many, many others, from back when the dragons roamed the land. I felt my eyes begin to water. That was such an incredible and precious gift.

“You know,” I said, trying not to let my emotions slip through in my words. “I’m not so much of a dragon fan anymore, these days.”

“You’re lying,” Raya retorted, immediately, and I laughed.

“Yes, I am,” I admitted, grinning. “Thanks, Raya. I love it.”

I placed the book carefully atop my nightstand, then sat on the bed and patted the space beside me for Raya to sit. For a moment, neither of us knew what to say. There was so much that had been left unsaid, three years earlier. And yet, looking at her, then, it was like we had never left that moment in the palace, chatting about dragons and getting to know each other. Things should have been different. If we’d never gone to the sanctuary, that day, if my mother had never followed us, or taken the gem, then maybe we could have spent the past three years together as friends, rather than apart as enemies.

 _I’m sorry for what happened_ , I thought about saying. But was that enough to express what I was feeling? And was I really that sorry, considering how much better Fang was faring, these days? No, those weren’t the right words.

“I missed you.”

It was Raya who said it. I felt a warmth in my chest. _Those_ were the right words. And I knew now what I wanted to say.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said back.

Our reunion, though sweet, was short lived.

“Namaari!” came a call from outside the room. We both jumped. It was my mother! I panicked. If she found Raya in my room, she would absolutely totally freak-the-hell-out.

Raya and I exchanged a look of apprehension, then the girl got up and furtively dashed back to the window. She grabbed her arnis, and made sure they were firmly attached to the wall outside. “I’ll come again,” she whispered to me, before jumping through the window only a fraction of a second before my mother swung open the bedroom door.

“Namaari, you’re late for dinner again. Do I have to come fetch you up here every time?”

“I’m coming, mom,” I said, closing the window in a hurry. And if my mother did notice me behaving strangely, that night, she didn’t comment on it.

 _I’ll be waiting_ , I whispered, before turning around to leave.


	3. Chapter 3

The next night, Raya knocked on my window again. But when I looked outside and saw nobody, the girl surprised me by looking into the room from above without warning. “Hello!” she said, before swinging down from the roof and into my bedroom.

“My goodness, Raya, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry, Princess,” she said, smiling at me as she took off her shoes and left them near the window. It took my heart a moment to steady itself after the shock. Raya looked cheerful, contrary to myself. I had spent the entire day a little down, and it took only a brief exchange of words for Raya to notice how I felt. “You don’t look too happy,” she pointed out.

“I’m… confused,” I explained. “You being here and everything. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like that you’re here!” I quickly added, noticing the slight hint of sadness on her face. “But we’re supposed to be enemies, Raya, why are you visiting me in the dead of night?”

Raya sat down on the floor, cross-legged. “I don’t think we’re enemies,” she replied, without missing a beat. “Sure, your mother may have defied the other four Kingdoms, once, and we’re all in a bit of a pickle because of her, but it’s not like _you_ had much say in the matter. I can’t hold you accountable for her actions, nor do I want to.”

I opened my mouth to try and counter that argument, but closed it again. Raya was right. Even if I’d wanted to, back in the day, challenging my mother was out of question. No matter what I’d decided to do, that night, three years ago, my mother would have still walked out of the sanctuary with the dragon gem.

“So what are we, then?”

Raya pondered about that for a moment. “Well, we were friends once,” she said. “I don’t see why we can’t be that again.”

I shook my head, baffled, but couldn’t help the smile that crept on my face. I walked over to the bed, sat down, and Raya didn’t wait much before coming to join me. I carefully removed a loose floorboard from beside the bed — my secret compartment of things mother couldn’t know that I had —, and pulled out the book she’d given me, the night before.

“I don’t think I’ve thanked you enough for this, Raya,” I told her, opening the book on the page I’d marked with a ribbon, the night before. “These stories are beautiful. Have you read them as well?”

Raya nodded. “It’s been in my family for generations. I think I know all of the stories in it by heart.”

I felt anxious, hearing that. “If it’s a family heirloom, then I can’t accept it,” I tried to say, but Raya placed her hands on top of mine, to stop me from returning the gift.

“I want you to have it. From one dragon nerd to another. And besides,” she tugged at her blouse’s collar, then pulled out a pendant that was wrapped around her neck. “I still have the one you gave me.”

I stared at the Sisu necklace, stunned. _Three years and she held on to it?_ She really must like it, huh?

“That’s not the same,” I argued. “The necklace I gave you is a trinket, at best. It isn’t worth a tenth of what’s in this book.”

“It’s not about the price of the gift, you know that, Nami,” said Raya.

The use of a nickname shocked me, a little. _Nami_. Nobody called me that. Not even my mother. Raya sure was an unconventional girl.

“Now… which one was your favorite story?” she asked.

By some miracle, my mother did not come up to interrupt us, this time. We chatted about the legends in the books for well over an hour, then went on to talk about our lives and the things that had happened in these past three years we’d been apart. I did most of the talking. I had a feeling that there was something Raya wasn’t telling me: her answers, particularly about more intimate stuff, like her father, were mostly vague. But I let it slide, for now. I was too happy about reigniting our old friendship to risk it all by asking the wrong questions.

It was only when I started to yawn that I realized we’d been talking for the last three hours.

“It’s late,” Raya pointed out. “I should go.”

I nodded. I wished I could have asked Raya to spend the night at the palace, then maybe go on a tour of Fang Island with me in the morning, but I knew my mother would never agree to something like that. We were, after all, from enemy kingdoms, and she wasn’t even supposed to be meeting me in the first place.

Raya got to her feet and walked over to the window, where she slipped on her shoes.

“You know, you really need to stop showing up at my room like that,” I pointed out. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Raya, but there are dozens of guards standing outside with crossbows, and I don’t think they’ll hesitate to plant an arrow on your back if they notice an armed stranger lurking outside their princess’ room.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but you guys didn’t exactly leave the front door open,” she countered.

I shrugged. She was right about that. A less skilled warrior would have had a hard time even stepping foot on Fang Island, let alone getting anywhere close to the Princess’ bedroom. It made me wonder how she ever managed to get through our defenses.

“Still,” I said, “if we’re going to keep meeting each other in the dead of the night, we have to find a safer way to do it.” I dug into the secret spot under the floorboards and pulled out a small silver box. I opened it to reveal a single iron key, which I promptly took and offered to the Heart Princess.

“A… key?” she asked, unsure. “It’s not actually the front door key, right? Because you know I can’t really—”

I laughed. “No, silly,” I said, pushing the key in her hands. I then walked over to my bookcase and searched for one particular scroll among many, the one that contained the palace blueprints. “Here,” I said, opening the prints on top of the bed, then motioned for her to come look. I pointed at a particular section of it. “This room right here is the inner garden. Nobody goes there at night. No guards, no staff, nobody. The key I’ve given you opens the storage room on the back of the castle… this one, here, see? There’s a hallway connecting them. If you can slip in unseen, I’ll meet you at the inner garden. It’ll be safer than what you’ve been doing so far.”

Raya nodded along with my plan. “I see how that would work, but how will you know when to expect me? Should I send you a signal, somehow?”

“You can’t,” I argued. “My mother’s smart, she’ll notic—”

I stopped talking as we locked eyes.

There was something in the way she looked at me that just pulled me in, made me forget about anything and everything else in the world. And that something was telling me that, if need be, I’d wait all of my life to see her again.

“I suppose I’ll just have to wait for you every night,” I said, before I could stop myself.

“Then I’ll come every night,” said Raya, and I smiled.


End file.
